[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Artillery and sea units (PR#1476)

[Thanasis Kinias <tkinias@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

scripsit Kenn Munro:
> On Mon, 2002-05-27 at 17:49, Daniel L Speyer wrote:

[DS]
> > Interestingly, rifles came into use shortly before ironclads, both
> > seeing their first major use in the U.S. civil war.

Rifles existed for a long time prior to the ACW, at least in the 17th c.
and probably before.  In the Napoleonic Wars, for example, there was a
British rifle regiment (IIRC the 95th Regiment of Foot) which was wholly
rifle-equipped, and many armies employed rifle-equipped sharpshooter
units.  The rifles were difficult to load, however, because the bullet
had to be forced against the rifling from the muzzle all the way to the
breech.  Consequently, the rate for fire was too low for line troops to
use them.  What changed in the ACW was, as I mentioned in another post,
the minée ball, which was sub-calibre for easy loading but had an
expanding base to grip the rifling upon firing.  Rifles could then be
reloaded as fast as smoothbore muskets.

For artillery, there were similar innovations which allowed
muzzle-loading rifles, but the final evolution was the breech-loader.

Basically, rifling isn't the big invention at all.  Once you've got
metallurgy, the minée ball (or, if you prefer, conical bullet)
revolutionizes infantry firepower, followed by breechloaders and
repeating rifles.

[DS]
> > Also, riflemen are the first
> > defensive unit powerful enough that massive ironclad bombardment isn't the
> > best strategy.  Furthermore similar techniques might be used in rifling a
> > barrel and building a working steam engine (they both require making small
> > patterns in hard metal).  All together, I think riflery as a pre-req for
> > steam engine works well.

I totally disagree.  Metallurgy as a prereq for steam engines makes
sense, but rifling is wholly unrelated.  If both are made possible by
the same tech, we should identify that tech.  From a pedagogic
perspective, saying things like "rifling makes steam engines possible"
is very, very problematic.

[KM]
> Why is magnetism a requirement for steam engine?  Only so that ironclads
> aren't available before galleons/frigates?

I don't get that either.  There's no reason you couldn't have ironclads
without advanced navigation, actually.  Ironclads weren't initially
very seaworthy, anyway.  If you wanted to deploy to China, you needed
sails.

[KM]
> Maybe ironclads should require a separate technology.  High
> temperature/pressure steam engines became available in the early 1800s,
> and railroads started to be widely used by 1830.  Ironclads didn't
> appear until 1855.

AFAIK, there was not technical limitation preventing earlier use of
ironclads.  Steamships existed earlier, but naval men were _extremely_
conservative about adopting new technologies.  If you have metallurgy
and steam engines, you can make ironclads.

[KM]
> I like the idea of a "rifling" technology.. much more appropriate for
> the unit than conscription, but I think that steam and railroad should
> be moved earlier.

Except that rifling had been around for a long time by then.

-- 
Thanasis Kinias
Web Developer, Information Technology
Graduate Student, Department of History
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.

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